Vivaldi: Orlando furioso

Ensemble Matheus,
Jean-Christophe Spinosi (dir)

NaïveDR 2148

It’s sad that one of Vivaldi’s finest operas has
been so
diminished here by Pierre Audi’s monochrome,
miserablist
stage direction. Costumes, sets and lighting are
restricted to
shades of grey and Alcina’s enchanted isle is
represented by a
few outsize chairs and tables or, in Act 3, a
grimy brick wall.
Worse, Audi keeps most of the singers onstage
(despite the
libretto) and has them enact arch tableaux during
the arias—a
ploy that, if initially intriguing, has become a
pointless
distraction by Act 3, as the cast stagger around
like a zombie
mime troupe. The original opera ends happily,
with Orlando’s
reason restored; here, still demented, he skips a
‘dance of
death’ in front of Alcina’s corpse! Fortunately,
the principal
singers (Lemieux, Larmore, Cangemi, Jaroussky),
all excellent,
recorded the opera on CD with Spinosi in 2004, so
we can
enjoy Vivaldi’s fabulous music without having to
endure a
staging that, like Orlando, becomes increasingly
unhinged.